Far right Polish MEP compares Jews to Hannibal Lecter in speech outside Auschwitz

A far-right Polish politician has compared promoting Jewish life in Poland to ‘inviting Hannibal Lecter to move in next door’ whilst standing outside of Auschwitz.

58-year old Grzegorz Braun, a member of the European Parliament, was speaking to reporters on Saturday in the town of Oświęcim, infamously known as the site of the former concentration camp, where 1.1million people were murdered, the vast majority of them Jews.

Braun used the press conference to criticise a proposed government bill to tackle antisemitism in Poland.

In comments which have been condemned by his own government as well as internationally, he claimed: “Jews want to be super-humans in Poland, entitled to a better status, and the Polish police dance to their tune”, adding: “They take pleasure in trampling on us, the Poles. Poland is for the Poles. Other nations have their own states, the Jews have theirs.”

Mr Braun said the plan “singles out one particular group… [for] special privileges… [and] is tantamount to discrimination against all Polish citizens of non-Jewish descent”.

Poland’s justice minister, Waldemar Zurek, has pledged to launch an investigation into Braun’s comments, saying: “We will not allow anyone to express such views with impunity. It is truly shameful for Poles that someone like this, in the 21st century, after what happened in Poland during World War II, is turning this place into some hideous political game.”

The country’s first ever five-year proposal to fight growing antisemitism and support Jewish life in Poland is expected to be approved by the Polish cabinet in December.

In April 2025, Grzegorz Braun was suspended for 30 days after disrupting a moment of silence at a 29 January Holocaust Remembrance event, by declaring: “Let’s pray for the victims of the Jewish genocide in Gaza.”

Braun, who leads the monarchist wing of the Confederation of the Polish Crown, was barred from taking part in the next Holocaust remembrance ceremony. In July, he said on Polish radio that the gas chambers at the Auschwitz death camp were “fake,” while long-debunked claims that Jews murdered Christians to use their blood for ritual purposes were “fact.”

He also previously made headlines in December 2024 after using a fire extinguisher to put out Chanukah candles in the Polish Parliament.

According to a 2021 Polish census, there are around 17,000 Jewish people in the country out of a total population of 38 million. A 2018 law made it a civil offence to accuse “the Polish nation” of responsibility for crimes it prefers to blame completely on Nazi Germany, which invaded Poland in 1939.